


you'd sell my soul to make a comeback

by wyverning



Category: Captive Prince - C. S. Pacat
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fae, Assassination attempts, Enemies to Lovers, Explicit Sexual Content, M/M, Never trust the fae, akielos is the mortal realm, and vere is the land of the fae, echoes of prince's gambit, faeries and magic, featuring damen never following that advice, the seelie and unseelie courts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-26
Updated: 2019-12-26
Packaged: 2021-02-25 22:15:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 19,246
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21942739
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wyverning/pseuds/wyverning
Summary: There is nothing an Akielon fears more than the dangerous, mystical lands of Vere and its inhabitants. The Fae are selfish, cruel, and have access to a magic so threatening and powerful that it's worth waging a decades-old war against.When Prince Damianos of Akielos is banished to the land of the Fae for a crime he didn't commit, he's certain that he has been sentenced to a fate worse than death. But he quickly learns that the Fae living in Vere don't quite match up to the stories he's always been told of them...
Relationships: Damen/Laurent (Captive Prince)
Comments: 16
Kudos: 137
Collections: Captive Prince Reverse Bang 2019





	1. damen

**Author's Note:**

> this is my capri reverse big bang 2019 piece! working with [yankihachi](https://yankihachi.tumblr.com/) to create this story was such a blast, and their art is absolutely STUNNING. you can find full-sized versions of all the images embedded in this story [here!](https://yankihachi.tumblr.com/post/189974016830/reverse-big-bang-2019-princes-gambit-fae-au)
> 
> thank you so much to [kay](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ihaveacleverfandomurl/pseuds/ihaveacleverfandomurl) for betaing this, i owe you my entire life!!!

There is no mistaking this for anything but a death sentence, Damen thinks with certainty as he’s forced to his knees beside the ring of mushrooms. The bindings are tight around his wrists, ensuring he can’t do anything but comply as they handle him roughly. He doesn’t recognize the guards restraining him, which is, most likely, an act of calculation.

A lifetime flashes in front of his eyes.

Damen can’t get the image of Kastor out of his head: holding himself regally in the doorway of Damen’s chambers, commanding his own brother be executed for regicide.

He thinks about Lykaios, her sticky, too-hot blood pouring over his fingers, and hopes that, against all odds, the guards loyal to him managed to escape an equal fate. The rough hands on him, shoving him violently against the earth, make it harder to pretend they made it out alive.

“How do you think they’ll reward us for giving you to them? What will your fate be in their hands?” a clear, familiar voice says from above him, and it takes everything within Damen to avoid looking in her direction. His jaw hurts with the force of how hard he’s gritting his teeth.

Jokaste steps into his line of sight, drawing a slender finger up the curve of his neck. “Come now, Damen. Surely all of your schooling has taught you the value of a gift?”

“They will turn their magic against you,” he spits angrily. Her betrayal burns fiercely in his chest: what she and Kastor have done is unforgivable. Her presence, along with her words, solidify the treachery. “You truly think this will gain you favor?”

“I think,” she says, words deliberate, “they will be very grateful to spill royal blood.”

Fury thrums beneath his skin as she gestures to the guards and they push him into the fairy ring, into Vere, into the land of magic that has craved his death since he struck iron into the heart of their beloved prince.

* * *

Wherever the fairy ring spits him out, blurred by magic and the sticky heat of summer, is treacherous. It’s with a sickening settling of his stomach that Damen realizes has no idea what knowledge of his banishment has spread through his country, and he can’t risk prying for information when the Fae would just as soon gut him as speak to him.

He’s entirely on his own.

When Damen was young, he’d stuck his finger directly into a fire despite his father’s chiding to stay cautious around the warming hearth. His body had recognized the threat, recoiling instantaneously and withdrawing his fingers from the flame before he’d even acknowledged the pain for what it was. Reacting instinctively had saved him from a fate worse than blistered fingers.

Vere feels exactly like that: an innate recoiling of his entire being even as he identifies no visible danger. It’s an awful feeling, hackles raised on constant edge while a quiet, knowing voice murmurs in his head of how he’ll never make it out alive. 

Damen tries to recall all he’s been taught over the years regarding how to deal with the Folk, but it’s like grasping at fish while the stream’s current hurries them along, slipping endlessly out of his grip. Fear takes hold and spreads its roots, and he resolves to not let it overtake him entirely.

He doesn’t know how, but he swears that he’ll survive this. Giving up is not an option: Akielos needs him, still. He doesn’t know the full story of what’s truly happened with Kastor and his father, but he’ll be no use to his country — and his family — if he perishes in this unknown land.

Damen’s first task is freeing himself from the hempen rope tying his arms behind his back. It’s hard work, finding a rock that’s sharp enough to bite into the thick cording and then maneuvering his hands into a position to work at it. Minutes slip into hours as he frees himself; it feels nothing short of a miracle that he manages to saw through the rope enough to free himself. His wrists feel raw with the drag of hemp against his skin, but it’s a small price to pay.

He treks through the forest surrounding him, though it’s a fool’s errand to hope that he will find some purpose other than to _survive_ as he aimlessly moves past the thick copse of trees. The magic embedded deep in the land prickles against his skin, and gooseflesh rises on the back of Damen’s neck as he walks. It isn’t long before the awareness that he’s being watched settles into him, and he forces his limbs to continue moving.

A quiet, breathless giggle permeates the air, and everything within him freezes. 

Between one breath and another, a child stands in his path. Their skin is a warm bronze, not unlike Damen’s own, and he very nearly questions what an Akielon child is doing wandering around a place so dangerous until he notices how unnaturally still they are. Around them, the forest breathes life: leaves rustle and sunlight flickers through the moving branches of trees, but the child might as well be made of stone.

A quiet _mew_ interrupts his internal battle between fight and flight, and Damen risks it: he drops his gaze to the ground, where a black cat with a burst of white across its chest is jogging directly toward him. It’s a gorgeous creature, all graceful long legs and sleek ebony fur, and Damen’s lips tilt in the slightest smile almost against his will. The cat, the Fae… it’s a lot to take in at once, and the child is still looking at him expectantly. He has to say _something._

Damen prays that knowing the language of the Fae will help him, here. Perhaps he’ll seem less of a threat when they realize he’s spent time learning how to speak like them. It’s possible the lessons of the Crown that he’s endured for years may pay off.

“Is this,” Damen begins in lilting Veretian, but his throat’s too dry for the words to come out as anything but a rasp. He clears it desperately. “Is this… your cat?”

The child’s eyes shimmer silver then gold. _“Mine?”_ they ask, and the words reveal a mouth overcrowded with teeth. Said cat winds its way around Damen’s legs, purr surely loud enough to be heard from miles round. He nods, heart beating a frantic rhythm in his breast.

“Nobody owns her,” the Fae says matter-of-factly. It sounds so childishly _sure_ that Damen almost forgets about the immortal magic running through their blood. “She’d kill you in a second for trying.”

“Ah,” Damen says, because what else is there to say to that? Fae children with too many teeth and cats who own themselves... He supposes he’s lucky he _hasn’t_ been killed, yet.

The cat seems to like him, at least. Damen crouches down, wary of the creature eyeing him, and rubs a fuzzy, fur-tufted ear. It’s good to know that even in Vere, mortal animals still exist — and have an affinity for Damen’s brand of affection.

With a quiet hum, the child tilts their head. The cat lets out an annoyed-sounding yowl in response before nipping playfully at Damen’s fingers and trotting over to join them.

“Come along, then,” they say, turning on their heel. It’s obvious they expect Damen to follow.

Damen’s thoughts splinter. “Why?”

“You were lost, and now you have been found.”

Is it possible they don’t know he’s mortal? Or — perhaps that’s the point. He’s being led into a trap, distracted by an affectionate feline and the startling youngness of an immortal creature. He blanches, feeling like a fool for being so easily lulled into doing something as foolish as _speaking_ with a member of the Folk who would likely laugh while boiling the blood within his veins.

Though…

The child could have easily killed him by now, he's sure. He may be unprepared to deal with the reality of the Folk in their own land, but he knows enough about the way that raw magic can easily snuff the life out of a mortal.

And yet… Jokaste had mentioned delivering Damen to the royal Court of Vere, but although this child is clearly imbued with the otherworldly magic of the Fae, they don’t bear a resemblance to Prince Auguste. It’s possible that they have nothing to do with the people who want him dead, that Jokaste’s lack of knowledge regarding the Fae rivals Damen’s own, and the Fae child knows nothing of his identity.

He’s already been cast out of Akielos, left for dead in a land rife with all manner of creatures that would love to torment a wayward human. At least the Fae in front of him will lead him somewhere where he can regroup his thoughts, perhaps acquire a weapon of some sort before he manages to slip away and continue his journey to — wherever he’s meant to go. Somewhere safe to gather his thoughts and consider the best way back into Akielos.

Damen’s stomach grumbles loudly.

Somewhere with food, too.

It’s likely going to bite him in the ass, but he’s got no other option: Damen follows.

* * *

The child tells Damen to call them _Aisling,_ which is certainly not a true name, but it isn’t as though he has a leg to stand on when he offers a name in return. It’s peculiar, to hear his small name in the Fae’s magic-inflected words, but a much safer route than doing something as purely idiotic as revealing his _true_ identity.

Names have power, here.

Aisling leads him to a hidden-away cottage that looks deceptively mortal. Once inside, however, Damen’s skin prickles with the awareness that something is not quite _right,_ and he’s unsure if his instincts are trying to punish him for throwing his lot in with a creature he knows nothing about.

Damen’s feline friend sticks close to them, weaving between their legs as they walk.

“You,” Aisling pronounces once they’re inside, pointing up at Damen very seriously, “are very stupid.”

They only come up to Damen’s hip in height, but the power held within that tiny body is nothing to brush aside. It’s why he just barely manages to catch the startled laugh bubbling out of his chest, swallowing it down before it’s allowed to become something audible.

“Why?” he asks, hoping his inquisitiveness won’t invoke a negative reaction.

Something flashes in Aisling’s eyes, before they say, _“Sit down.”_

Damen’s legs fold beneath him before the thought even registers. Sheer panic blinds him for a moment: he’s never had his own control stripped away so instantaneously, not even when Kastor’s men had torn him from his bedchambers to be punished for a treason he knew nothing about. He chokes down one ragged breath, then two, as he stares up into Aisling’s gaze. 

They look smug in the face of Damen’s obedience.

“Alright,” he concedes, trying to calm his trembling limbs. The black cat nuzzles up against him comfortingly. “You’ve proven your point.”

Aisling says again, “Stupid. Mortals always think they can handle us when they know nothing.” 

Damen thinks that not even a century’s worth of research could have prepared him for the reality of Vere. He _knows_ he’s at a disadvantage, that he’s been banished here to die, but it’s a slap to the face to be told it so bluntly. To be _shown_ exactly how powerless he currently is.

What he wouldn’t give for the comforting security of cold iron held in his grip.

From his vantage point on the floor, Aisling looks almost cruel. Their sharp, aristocratic features suit the callous ability of absolute control, and though he’s been considering his mortality, this is the first moment that truly drives home how easily he could be killed. Aisling could command him to stop breathing until he suffocated, hardly lifting a finger to cause the slaughter.

Kastor’s malice may have sentenced him, but the Fae are the deadly executioners, honed for violence.

Aisling’s nose wrinkles.“Stop looking so pathetic. There is a flower that will protect you from a geas, if you string its blossoms around your neck.” 

It’s like cold water poured atop his head. “Why would you tell me such a thing?” Information like this comes with a cost, and Damen’s not sure he can pay it.

“You will owe me a boon,” Aisling declares. “The Cat Sith sees something in you, and it’s been decades since someone so delicate has wandered past. We find you interesting enough to let you continue your wandering.”

The cat — not so mortal, evidently — chirps in agreement. Damen is simultaneously flattered that the cat creature has deemed him worthy and offended at having been played so thoroughly. Before he can react, the cat in his lap accompanies Aisling’s words with a sharp bite to the inside of Damen’s wrist. Blood wells alongside the sting of pain, and fear and awe mingle as he watches the cat lap up the smear of red on his skin.

If nothing else, the crown’s teachings have taught him to always acknowledge the kindnesses that the Fae offer, even when it appears as a double-edged sword. Damen has nothing to his name: owing a debt to one of the Folk will certainly punish him in the future, but it isn’t as though he has much to offer aside from a future favor.

He knows better than to explicitly thank Aisling for his kindness, if it could even be called that. They spurn words of gratitude, as paltry as they are in the face of true action. The Fae has essentially coerced him into a pact: giving away vital information that might save Damen and then requiring him to pay the knowledge back. The bargain struck grates on his nerves, but at least it means he’s survived this encounter.

Aisling casts one final geas — “I don’t envy your lot a single thing but your ability to lie” — that compels Damen to obey whatever demand Aisling eventually requires of him. He escapes with his life, a way to protect himself from invasive magic, and a standing debt with an immortal Fae who finds him more amusing than dangerous.

Things could be worse. It leaves Damen cautiously optimistic: if he can negotiate his way through Vere, it’s possible he might live to see Akielos again.

* * *

He finds the flowers in a prairie that looks far too peaceful to be true. They grow in great bushels alongside deep green leaves. Damen knows of all the common tricks for warding off Fae — the ones learned by his ancestors in the midst of a timeless war — but he’s not sure how to find raw salt or iron in a place like this. He’ll have to settle for taking Aisling’s advice, and hope it’s enough to keep him moving forward.

A distant buzzing, almost like a hiss, greets his ears as he ducks down to collect as many of the golden flowers as he can. His skin prickles dangerously, but there’s no visible threat, and he hurries his gathering.

 _Oh,_ a soft voice whispers to him. When Damen whips around, intent on finding the source of the voice, he finds nothing. Ingrained instinct has him grabbing for the hilt of a sword no longer there. A gentle brush of wind blows past his face, and if he didn’t know better, he’d say it was… teasing. _What a lovely creature you are._

Damen feels uneasy. It’s possible his senses are deceiving him, but it’s rather more likely that his mind is just incapable of comprehending the magic accosting him.

 _My, how it’s been so long,_ the voice murmurs. _Won’t you stay for awhile?_

It’s with sudden, astonishing clarity that Damen realizes how entirely out of his depth he is. His people had seemed so confident in their knowledge of the Fae: years of ceaseless war had taught them the inner workings of their enemy and how to slay them. But he knows now, with certainty, that the reality of being amongst the Fair Folk renders nearly all of his prior knowledge useless.

They are a force far too complex and numbered to comprehend entirely, and Damen’s vastly unprepared.

At least he’ll likely perish before the Court even knows he’s here. It’s a small blessing: should any members of the royal family learn of Damen’s presence, he’s sure he’ll quickly become privy to the most brutal tortures imaginable. Slaying Auguste served his purpose in Akielos, but in Vere, it will only grant him a terrible death.

“I want no trouble,” he says softly, desperately. “Just passing through.”

The voice makes a considering noise. _But you look so tired, and surely you’re hungry._ Another caress of wind brushes his cheekbones, and it feels distinctly like fingertips. _You won’t rest with us for even a night?_

“I can’t. But I can… give you something else.”

_Hm?_

It’s probably a stupid idea, but he’s been deeply unsettled at how helpless he’d been in the face of Aisling’s display of magic. He has nothing tangible to give the ominous manifestation, but perhaps a gift of immaterial sorts will smooth over his presence.

His heart aches as he focuses all of his energy on the last time he’d had Lykaios in his chambers. She’d been a pliant, gorgeous mess, the wine smeared across her lips in perfect complement to heavily flushed cheeks. The memory is all he can think to give.

The voice releases a delighted giggle. _Oh, you mortals are something_ fascinating.

“Would you like it?”

 _A creative gift, no doubt._ A puff of air — no, _breath_ — hits his neck. _Are you sure it’s one you are willing to part with?_

Damen nods. He steels his spine with utmost confidence: he cannot afford to flounder. “It’s yours.”

He expects it to hurt — the pull of his memory leaving him in the ache of his head being split open, or a sharp cut as it’s ripped from his thoughts, but all he’s left with is a curious absence, not unlike the hunger gnawing at his stomach.

 _You will always be welcome here, should you ever change your mind,_ the voice hums, before Damen feels abruptly _alone._

Invisible creatures trying to seduce him into — gods knows what — is another experience his training in Akielos had never prepared him for. If he does manage to survive this, his intimate knowledge of the Fae could turn the tides of the war.

Damen sits down on the ground, hard, and stares down at the cluster of flowers held in his grasp. It feels wildly inappropriate to twist the stems together mere seconds after a dangerous brush with the Folk, but he needs the protection they will bring.

He loops the golden flowers around his neck and marches on toward the hedge of trees he can just barely see on the edge of the horizon. 

* * *

Exhaustion wins out as he wanders hours after leaving the field (mostly) intact. He’s been walking for what feels like weeks, though he truly couldn’t say how long it’s been since Kastor betrayed him. It might be his exhaustion, or some sort of tricky magic in the air, but time feels strange in Vere. His certainty leaves him the more he ponders it.

The thought alone of what his brother has done lends further weariness to his bones, and the weight of this particular burden seems heavier than the hunger plaguing him and the tired tremble of his muscles.

He’s unused to going for so long without rest and sustenance, and it’s taking its toll.

Praying to the gods that there aren’t any malevolent creatures nesting in the forest surrounding him, he climbs a tree until he’s hidden by sprawling branches and foliage. It’s risky, falling asleep so high up, but the trunk of the tree he’s chosen is wide and curves inward, giving him enough room to curl up without feeling as though he’s placed precariously enough to fall should he shift unconsciously. 

In the midst of agonizing over what has happened, he somehow, impossibly, falls into a restless sleep.

* * *

The sound of garbled arguing jerks Damen awake. 

The voices don’t seem alarmed at his presence, which means that _maybe_ his hiding spot hasn’t been compromised; regardless, he remains on alert. He can’t understand what they’re saying, but twigs crackle underneath their feet as the owners of the voices step into view.

A sick combination of dread and anticipation curls in his stomach, because Damen recognizes this breed of Fae. He’s faced them on the battlefield before, killed them and watched them slaughter his kinsmen alike, and they’re a ruthless, bloodthirsty force.

Silvery hair tumbles out from beneath the rust-colored cloth hats atop their heads. Their hands are gnarled, fingers twisting into deadly claws, and whether the brown crusted beneath them is dirt or blood, Damen’s too far to tell. 

He’d wager the latter.

If they find him, death will be the least of Damen’s concerns. Redcaps enjoy the thrill of killing, and they’ll have all the time in the world to peel the skin from his bones while blood still beats through his veins, should they find him. Aisling and the invisible creatures of the meadow are child’s play compared to the malevolence that fuels them.

The Redcaps continue on their way, after what feels like a lifetime. They’re in no hurry, meandering through the woods as they chatter.

Just as Damen thinks he’s in the clear, they pause abruptly. One holds its head high in the air, sniffing loudly enough that it’s audible even to Damen high up in the treetops. He stills completely, holding even the breath within his lungs, hoping with all his might that he’s gone undetected.

Their heads whip around just as a boar snuffles its way into their path. It happens in an instant: one moment, the creatures are snarling in pleasure at the unexpected meal, and the next, they’ve spanned the visible stretch of forest to rip their claws into the beast’s flesh. It lets out a pained squeal, trying vainly to escape, but it’s far too late for that.

Damen watches as they tear the boar apart. He’s stilled by a quiet sense of horror as a gleeful note of laughter rings through the air — they’re pleased by the bloodbath, rending its flesh and cackling as they dip their hats into the blood pooling on the ground.

He waits hours past their departure before climbing down the tree, terrified of scaling the trunk before he’s truly alone. It’s little matter to ignore the pressure in his bladder as the fear of death still clings to him. He’s worse than helpless, and the reminder fills him with despair. He’s just as ripe for the slaughter as the remains of the boar beside him.

There’s no way Damen can continue on like this. He needs to find a weapon; he refuses to die so easily.

* * *

It’s too good to be true.

Damen _knows_ this, feels the reality of it with every breath he takes, but still he can’t tear his gaze away from the iron sword resting atop a small mound of dirt.

He’s crouched over a trickling stream, hands cupped to his mouth as he quenches his thirst with frenzy, when he spies it. Once noticed, he can’t look away. The weapon is heavily rusted and clearly abandoned. It would almost make sense: the Fae cannot touch iron, and tend to avoid even being near its presence, so the weapon may have been left behind and untouched for as long as the forest has been without mortal presence.

But Damen had been hoping for a weapon, and to have somehow wished one into existence can’t be anything but preposterous, especially in a land rife with magic.

He stares at the sword, willing it to vanish like the trick it has to be. 

It does not.

It has to be — something. A trick of the eyes, a shimmering glamour of magic. Or the sword truly _is_ there, but it’s a trap.

Damen swallows, trying not to think of the fate of the sword’s owner. It’s too good to be true, yes, but Damen can’t afford to pass the opportunity just in case it’s _not._

With a weapon in hand, he would be dauntless. The terror that has clung to him will vanish to nothingness with the familiar comfort of a sword in his grip. He’s an excellent warrior, capable of slaying anyone who stands between him and his goal.

The temptation is too great, and anyway, it’s worth the risk. Even if it _is_ bait, he’s strong enough to take on foe.

He reaches for the weapon.

The warning thrum in Damen’s veins turns into a blaring alarm the moment his fingers touch the metal. Only, rather than the rusted, flaking metal of iron, in his grasp is the rough rasp of tree bark, and the sword reveals itself to be nothing but a useless branch, glamoured to appear as something far more advantageous than it truly is.

Damen spits out a curse, lunging backward to avoid the inevitable ambush, but it’s too late.

“Like a moth to a flame,” a voice hisses from behind as too-cold fingers wrap around his arms. “You crave violence and death, hm?”

“No,” Damen gasps, wrenching free and spinning on his heel to face his foe. “I meant no harm.”

It’s some kind of spirit of nature, clearly. Leaves and vines climb up the creature’s body, and the trees surrounding them seem to vibrate angrily alongside its palpable outrage.

It howls angrily. _“Liar!_ You would kill us with nary a thought!”

He can’t deny the veracity of its claim, but it’s for reasons exactly like this one: magical creatures who want nothing more than to do him harm. Damen tenses in anticipation of the fight.

The stick he’s holding is no iron, Fae-slaying sword, but it’s better than nothing. Damen swings it at the spirit’s gut as hard as he can, pretending it’s a weapon he’s more familiar with.

With an inhuman growl, the spirit dodges the stick and throws a hand out.

The magic hits Damen worse than a punch.

He’s thrown back against the invisible force of it, tossed like a child’s doll into the sturdy trunk of a tree. The bite of bark against his skin is hardly noticeable against the breath that’s knocked out of his lungs on impact.

This isn’t good. 

Apparently, Aisling’s flowers will protect him from magical compulsion, but not other harmful applications. He curses lowly, desperately throwing a punch that he’s positive won’t connect even as the momentum of his body pulls him through the motion. 

The creature hisses again, spitting something in a language Damen doesn’t recognize, and it slams a splayed-open hand against Damen’s shoulder. With the draw of magic behind it, Damen can’t help the cry that’s torn out of his throat. The resulting _pop_ is a surefire sign that his shoulder is dislocated, and he staggers back a few steps.

Urgency thrums through him; he can’t afford to nurse the pain of the injury, not with energy fairly crackling from between this spirit’s hands, and its bloodlust for mortals. Damen’s also weaponless, with no iron sword to combat the creature.

He exhales a short, forceful breath, and relocates his arm back into its socket. Tears spring to his eyes at the pain, but a quick roll of his shoulder proves he can move his arm again despite the aching throb.

As Damen deals with his injury, the Fae creature retreats behind the foliage surrounding them. He tracks its movements with gritted teeth, noticing that It’s avoiding fighting him in close-range, opting for bursts of magic that can take Damen out without drawing too near.

He has a sinking suspicion this creature won’t be placated with stealing a few memories. No, it’s out for blood. Pathetically, he wishes he had something — _anything._ A dagger. A spear. A torch of fire.

Damen steps backward, away from the creature. It steps closer.

He’s reminded of the stray cats of the palace, allowed to inhabit its various nooks and crannies as long as they continued to be competent mousers. Sometimes, the excellent ones would play with their meals, chasing and cornering their prey before finally striking a killing blow.

It’s fairly obvious that he’s the mouse, here.

The tree branch masquerading as a sword is too pathetic to be used even as a makeshift weapon, but he _is_ in a verdant forest, and Damen darts a glance around some of the surrounding trees.

Nearby is a tree that looks promising, and he wraps his hands around a strong-looking branch before tearing it away from the trunk. It’s tough to do, with his injured shoulder and because he’s also trying to keep the creature in view as he pulls the branch off, but a sudden chill runs through him as the spirit lets out an aggravated howl. 

A pulse of magic hits Damen, forcing him away from the half-torn branch. His feet slide messily through the dirt as the impact drags him along, and it takes a few seconds before the tug of magic fades enough for him to regain his footing.

Enraged, the spirit bellows, “You _dare_ harm us? Your death will be painful!” before slicing a hand through the air. Damen narrowly dodges the crack of magic that would have likely split him in half.

Oh. _Oh._

The creature is connected to the trees, that much is clear. And Damen’s actions have infuriated it, yes, but they’ve also appeared to do some damage. Not only does it dwell in the forest, but it can feel the trees’ pain.

Ahead is an ancient-looking willow, and Damen doesn’t hesitate before charging at it. There’s a knobbly-looking branch low enough for Damen to reach, but it’s thick and sturdy. He’s not sure he can rip it off, but surely he can use the momentum of his running lead to his advantage.

With a running leap, his palms grip the rough bark, and a loud _crack!_ resounds through the forest. It sounds more like the breaking of a bone than the snap of wood. His shoulder screams in pain, but he can’t afford to let it slow him down. The willow tree weeps sap as he tears the thick branch away from its trunk, cascading leaves whirling around him as his body twists.

An agonized wail fills the air, loud and shrill enough that it hurts even Damen. He flinches before dropping from the branch, taking the opportunity to flee, weaponless and hurting. 

_Shit._

* * *

He hustles through the forest until it breaks into another field, and then he continues on. Damen doesn’t bother to stop even when his lungs burn and the tendons in his legs ache for relief.

In his harried flight, Damen somehow ends up along a coastline. It seems nigh impossible, after the terrain he’s just traversed, but his lack of surprise at his new surroundings is a testament to his weariness. His shoulder throbs something fierce, a low pulse of soreness, but it’s manageable.

He’s still alive.

Despite being knee-deep in the enchanted lands of Vere, the ocean looks exactly like the view Damen had grown up with in Ios. It’s a startling revelation, that somewhere so _different_ can make his heart ache with homesickness for the palace he’d grown up in, but it’s a reminder that he’s survived up until this point, and has no intention of changing that outcome.

A flash of red catches his attention amongst the crashing whitewater of waves against the shore. It’s just a quick glimpse, at first, slipping beneath the shimmering sea as quickly as Damen had first spotted it.

He’s about to turn away, attributing it to a trick of the eyes, when it happens again. This time, the flash resolves itself to be something writhing about as it approaches the sandy beach, carried on a wave. Damen realizes it’s a siren just as its red-scaled tail thrashes about in the shallow waters, attached to the pale torso of a young man.

Legends of sirens are a familiar one in Akielos, endless tales of the creatures pouring out of the mouths of sailors. They’re a dangerous lot, stunning in beauty and capable of seducing even the most hardened of men. 

It wouldn’t be a bad fate to suffer, except for the part of the legend where they never let their prey survive after the coupling. 

Before long, Damen realizes the creature is wrapped in a net he recognizes as Akielon. Its thin fibers are woven with wires of iron, and Damen can see the creature flailing as the webbing of its tail entangles it further.

Damen should leave it be. What happens to the siren has nothing to do with Damen’s immediate need to find something to protect himself with. If anything, it’s stupider for him to approach knowing that he _doesn’t_ have a weapon.

He _knows_ this, but he can’t tear his eyes away from the creature’s tail, burdened by the iron weights strung around the net’s edges. He doesn’t know if the half-man, half-fish being _needs_ air to breathe, given its multifaceted appendages, but he does know that he’ll likely starve to death at the bottom of the sea if he doesn’t get the net off.

“I can help,” he says loudly from his vantage point on the shoreline, though the siren doesn’t cease its thrashing. He repeats his words as he approaches the waves washing up on the sand.

The creature narrows suspicious eyes at him, pausing in its frantic hissing and sibilant cursing, and Damen hopes he’s not about to be eaten for his troubles. He’s doing a lot of hoping, lately. Sheer luck hasn’t killed him yet.

When it becomes clear that the man — for he cannot be described as anything but, with his sculpted chest and fine features — is incapable of coming any closer, Damen wades into the water. It’s colder than he’d expected it to be, but the chill racing down his spine distracts him from how bad of an idea this probably is.

Damen says, “Let me help,” when he’s within arm’s reach. He gestures to the net. This close, he can see how the iron wound within the net is burning whatever it touches: the skin of the man’s chest, the shimmering, fiery scales of his tail. 

It takes time to untangle creature from net. He wishes he had anything sharp on him, though he knows firsthand how hard it is to cut through the fibers even _with_ a fishing knife. The moment the siren’s tail slips out of the net, he dives underneath the water and resurfaces yards away.

“You’re the mortal the sylphs won’t stop tittering about,” he says, once he’s a safe distance away from Damen’s grasp. His hair is as fiery as the scales on his lower half. 

“And you’re…” he prompts, somewhat pleased to put a name to the invisible brushes of wind who he’d bargained a memory away with.

“Not going to _thank you_ for freeing me from a trap you likely set yourself, if that’s what you’re expecting.”

Damen startles. “I— I didn’t—”

“Oh, sure,” the siren says haughtily. “I just so _happen_ to get ensnared in an _Akielon_ net a single day after the air spirits tell me all about the _gorgeous Akielon mortal_ who’s stumbled into our lands. Your kind means trouble, and I’m not falling for it.”

Gratitude is a forbidden thing for mortals to bestow upon the Fae, but polite respect has always been ingrained into Damen when it comes to non-battlefield interactions. 

“I swear I knew nothing of this,” he says as honestly as possible. “If I’d set the net, why would I bother to save you from it?”

The siren sinks below the water until just his eyes are visible. He looks suspicious, though Damen’s words haven’t scared him off completely. 

A few moments later, the creature emerges from the water again. “That could have been your plan,” he mutters. “You expect me to be grateful, and _owe_ you something.”

Damen can’t help but be alarmed at the idea of _him_ being the threat here. “I don’t want anything from you,” he says, hands held up in a gesture of surrender. “You just seemed like you needed help.”

With a loud _hmmph,_ the siren dives below the water. Damen notices that the sun’s starting to dip below the horizon, and realizes very abruptly that he’s still waist-deep in ocean water and about to be very, very cold. And wet. 

There’s no indication that the siren is still around and hasn’t left to go be standoffish in other parts of the ocean, and so he wades back to the shore, filing this under one of his stranger, though pleasantly less life-threatening, encounters with magical Folk. 

He makes sure to take the net with him: it’s laced between his fingers, and though the threads of iron are miniscule, they’re better than the _nothing_ he’s had with him on his journey until this point. 

“Hey!” the siren’s voice calls out, carrying over the sound of waves. “Tell me your name!”

“You want something _more_ from me?” Damen says disbelievingly before he can hold his tongue. He’s yelling at a legendary creature from the shoreline like the disgruntled prince that he _isn’t_ anymore, and he probably deserves getting dragged to a watery death at this point.

“Oh, _there’s_ a personality,” the siren grins, tail splashing the water around him. “I’m Ancel.”

“Damen. And I need to go find somewhere to dry off, so if you’ll excuse me…”

The siren — Ancel — smirks. In the orange glow of sunset, he looks almost ethereal, his auburn hair a halo around his head. “Or we could get you out of those wet clothes…”

He feels so far from sane that it takes a few moments for the words to sink in. How Ancel could go from imperious to flirty in mere seconds is beyond Damen’s understanding.

Though, he considers it _is_ what sirens are known for.

“Look,” Damen says, picking his words carefully. “I’m glad you’re okay, but I need to move on now.”

Ancel flutters his eyelashes at Damen in what he supposes might be a seductive way. “But you _must_ allow me to thank you, first,” he says, voice a charming lilt even as his eyes drop unsubtly to Damen’s crotch. “To show my gratitude, I won’t even drag you to the depths once we finish.”

Damen honestly can’t tell if he’s joking. “I’m alright, actually.”

Ancel looks back at him in disbelief, as if he couldn’t possibly imagine his proposition being rejected. Damen holds his gaze. He doesn’t have time for a… dalliance with a member of the Folk, not with the sun setting and his clothes still soaked from the sea.

“You’re no fun at all,” the siren scowls finally. 

He almost wants to apologize — Ancel looks positively livid. He anticipates it’s more to do with owing Damen a debt than anything else, but he knows better than to show an immortal creature an ounce of pity.

Damen draws the net up close to his chest. He assumes their conversation is over, turning away from the shore and heading away from the coast.

Yet Ancel spits, “Wait,” before Damen is out of earshot, and he pauses curiously. Surely the siren won’t attempt to kill him _now._

“If you walk along the coastline, you’ll find what you’re looking for.” The siren seems to resent telling him even that, because as soon as he’s finished speaking, he turns and dives into deeper waters, leaving Damen with a view of his powerful tail dipping below the water and a half-considered _thank you_ caught in his throat.

* * *

Ancel’s words ring true: he’s a shivering, cold mess as he travels along the shore far past sunset, but the tell-tale flicker of fire eventually breaches the horizon. As he approaches, it’s clear it’s some sort of fishing village, and unbridled relief washes over him. 

Damen hurries toward the fire, eager to warm up. His clothes cling to him, uncomfortably damp, and he throws all caution to the wind. Whatever lives in the village, Damen is sure he can negotiate with. He’s been successful, with Aisling and the sylphs and Ancel, and maybe Jokaste had unintentionally blessed him with her words rather than cursed him to a bloody death.

A man — he appears to be human, though Damen can’t truly tell the difference between reality and magic at this point — greets him, welcoming him into the small village. 

“This is a safe place for someone like you,” the stranger says, and it twists Damen’s insides. If he’s a Fae, then the words must be true, bound to the truth as magical creatures are. If he’s human, then he might be lying, but a mortal’s lies seem easier to deal with than the unknowns of the Fair Folk.

“The Unseelie are loyal only to themselves and those who benefit them,” the man tells him as Damen follows him into the town. “Prove yourself useful, and you’ll be in no less danger than you would be with your own people.”

Well. Damen’s own people have successfully ruined his life, but he’ll take those odds.

* * *

There are mortals living amongst the Fae, he learns, which makes his presence not all-together surprising. He supposes it makes sense. Enslaved humans and the family members loyal to them must’ve settled alongside the Folk decades ago. It makes Damen’s approach less dangerous, and more transactional.

The man who had greeted him is named Callistus — his true name, Damen learns, which can be spoken freely as he’s pledged his life to the dryads in a nearby copse of trees, who even the most powerful of Fae respect — and he guides Damen toward a house on the outskirts of the village. 

It’s food, and a place to sleep, and to gather his thoughts. Damen settles into the barn of the elderly couple he’s quickly introduced to, too tired to complain about the straw poking into his back and the pungent smell of livestock.

The next morning proves Ancel’s advice to be worth its weight in gold. He learns that the currency of the village is favors and bargains and contracts, that there are a great many things that humans can do that the Fae cannot, and that the two have developed a symbiotic relationship with one another over the decades.

He bargains with a blacksmith — a human whose wife is a wet nurse to a changeling child — to supply him with a week’s worth of rabbit meat in exchange for melting down the iron from the net down into a weapon. It becomes a dagger that’s marginally smaller than the weaponry that Damen is used to, but he feels leagues more comfortable knowing it’s part of his arsenal. He does, however, take care to hide it from the more magically-inclined creatures of the village as he barters with them.

It’s not quite a home, but Damen builds trust with the Fae that have nothing to do with the royal family (the Unseelie, they prefer to be called) and the humans who live alongside them. It turns out that there are a great many mortals that have come to live in the fishing village willingly, fleeing Akielon lands to make a home amongst magic.

More importantly, Damen can eke out a living, learning as much about the Fae as he learns about the current state of Akielos’ politics. He collects intel from both Akielos and Vere, and begins to plan for something beyond mere survival.

* * *

The dryads are the oldest creatures Damen comes across. They trust Damen through Callistus’ loyalty, and their plights are ancient and bone-deep. They enlist Damen’s help in amplifying the power of the ley lines that run through their forest, and as he does, they tell him their stories. It’s almost as though they’ve been _waiting_ for someone to share their tales with, words whispering amongst the rustling of leaves.

Their stories confuse Damen, legends of mortals that lived alongside the Fae, flittering through the forest and bargaining for the flowers and fruits of the trees, until their fears of death and magic and the unknown caused their auras to darken.

They whisper into Damen’s ear of how the blood of Oberon and Titania soaked into the ground, corrupting the very earth their palace once stood on, of how mortal paranoia led to the banishment of the Fae who had once loved them into the lands of Vere.

It’s a contradictory story to the one Damen has always known, of the Fae Courts betraying the mortals, enslaving them and using them, turning them into meals and fools and mindless captives to do their bidding.

He doesn’t know what to believe: the records of his ancestors and the pride he’s grown up embodying as he fought against the threat of overwhelming, dangerous magic, or the ancient accounts of the trees, who have lived longer on these lands than any other creature.

He thought he knew where he stood, but he finds himself living alongside the creatures he’s hated since birth, even going so far as to rescue them. 

The niggling of doubt, that perhaps Damianos of Akielos has never truly known the complete story of how the ancient civilization of Artes fell, never goes away.


	2. laurent

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> huge thank you again to [kay](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ihaveacleverfandomurl/pseuds/ihaveacleverfandomurl) for saving my sanity by betaing this fic!

Laurent can pinpoint the precise moment that Damianos of Akielos steps into Vere.

He’s in the midst of another arduous Council meeting when the shiver of Auguste’s magic snakes down his spine. It’s like ice water being poured over him, how startling the blood magic is, but it’s impossible to mistake as anything else.

It is, after all, the exact same magic that had struck him seven years prior, when his brother fell on the battlefield of Marlas.

Years of practice have perfected Laurent’s control over his facial features, though his brother’s attempted assassin encroaching the territory of the Fae is an extenuating circumstance that Laurent is not all-together prepared for.

While Guion drones on about how the spring naiads have yet to pay their annual tribute to the Court, Laurent waves a casual hand in front of his face, casting a glamour that will hide any unseemly reactions. The magic is subtle enough to go unnoticed by everyone but his uncle, who raises a fine eyebrow in response. 

He closes his eyes briefly in mimicry of sleep. It’ll appear childish, which will almost certainly result in some sort of lecture about how he won’t be mature enough to take the throne for another few decades, but it’s a manageable outcome. 

Laurent can afford to come off as annoyed at the meeting, but he cannot afford his uncle knowing something more serious has happened. The magic does not flare up a second time, but Laurent grits his teeth, knowing Damianos has breached the border.

The Unseelie that live close to Akielos are feral, uncontrolled. It’s possible they will kill him before Laurent even gets the chance to find him.

(It’s a testament to his inner turmoil that he’s not sure how the idea of it makes him feel.)

Once the Council adjourns, Laurent tactfully retreats before the Regent can berate him for such _frivolous use of magic._ He takes his time heading toward Auguste’s chambers, not wanting to attract needless attention as he strides down the halls.

His brother’s state remains stable, but Laurent has grown to loathe _stability_. It means stagnation: nothing has changed, and his brother’s soul is still locked within a prison of swirling magic. A fluctuation would at least teach Laurent something, and give him something to work with.

Laurent suspects it is the ancient magic of the land that has protected Auguste thus far. To be killed by a mortal on his own territory with the blood of the Court coursing through him had been unspeakable enough that his own magic — and perhaps the deep magic within Vere itself — had defended him at the final moment.

But, just as it had saved him from certain death, it had also trapped him in this stasis of non-existence, and Laurent hasn’t seen his brother truly alive in years.

He stares down at Auguste’s features, calm and peaceful in eternal rest, and clenches his fists. Leaving his brother alone and vulnerable is not an option, but neither is letting Damianos of Akielos run rampant in their lands.

* * *

Dinner is a typical affair, Laurent sat beside his uncle as he greets the emissaries from Vask that arrived earlier in the day. 

The giantesses have not always been welcomed into Vere, but Laurent thinks their arrival is worth it — if only because of his uncle’s almost-palpable disdain at the Vaskian fare the royal chefs constructed in their honor.

“I’ve heard unease along the border,” one of the delegates says before tearing into her meat with a kind of fervor that even Laurent has to admire. Her fingers are greasy as she eats, but he can’t deny the effectiveness of her technique.

“Yes,” the Regent of the Seelie Court responds. “It’s rather unfortunate that we still have not had any royal blood patrolling the country. The Unseelie grow more resistant to all that we represent the longer we remain out of touch with them.”

“I’ve actually decided to take you up on that suggestion,” Laurent drawls, gently placing his napkin back on the opulent table. “I believe it’s time for one of us to investigate exactly what’s been happening with our less-structured brethren. It’s the least I can do to repay our debts to the land, considering _no one_ from the royal family has left the palace in years.”

Silence greets his pronouncement. He’s been staunchly against leaving for patrol since Auguste’s fall, and his uncle has publicly bemoaned his lack of responsibility for years. There is nothing Laurent desires less than the idea of abandoning Auguste to his uncle, but he _must_ find Damianos and bring him back to Arles. Damianos is the only one who could possibly awaken his brother and alter the magic that’s forced Auguste into this state — he was, after all, the one responsible for his condition. 

Nobody can know who Damianos is. They’ll kill him for being a mortal, but they’ll drag it out if they learn exactly what he’s done to the crowned prince of Vere. It’s not that Laurent would _object_ to him suffering such a fate, but he needs him to reverse whatever he’s done, first.

His uncle’s mouth tightens. Had Laurent not been watching for it, he would have missed the minuscule motion.

“Wonderful news,” he says, and with a wave of his hand, the twinkling of soft music fills the air around them. “You will take part of the King’s Guard with you, surely.”

“Of course.” No doubt his uncle’s men will cause more problems than they solve, but it is an unavoidable sacrifice.

To reject the current Regent of the Seelie Court’s _kindness_ would be remembered for decades, but Laurent announcing his intentions so publicly clearly displeases his uncle, and it’s a small victory that he’ll gladly take.

* * *

He takes the Prince’s Guard that he’s cultivated over the last two decades alongside the band of mercenaries that have somehow acquired the responsibility of being royal guards. 

As they travel further and further away from the capital, Laurent watches his uncle’s men instigate petty, brutal fights with his Prince’s Guard. They tend to be barbaric yet erringly-nonfatal, and he thinks that there is _nobody_ worth this much trouble other than Auguste. 

It’s one of his riskiest plans, leaving his brother back in the palace while he searches Vere for Damianos, but it’s his only chance at retrieving the mortal prince and forcing him to reverse whatever he’d done. Auguste’s condition has not changed and is not likely to, but knowing that he’s unprotected by Laurent stirs latent anger in his veins.

He hopes his wards will stay strong even in his absence.

The captain of his uncle’s guard, a disgustingly foul Redcap by the name of Govart, is an annoyance, but he’s not Laurent’s priority.

That is, as always, Auguste.

* * *

Laurent does not entirely understand it, but there is a deep magic that runs along the bond that links him with his brother. He’s felt it since he was but a youngling, their closeness granting him a connection that allowed for emotions and sometimes thoughts to travel between them both.

Even years of poring through books and research to learn more about their bond have yielded little results: many of the ancient tomes recording magical history were lost when Artes fell, both sides waging a war with little regard to the collateral damage of destroyed records. 

He loves his brother, feels a more ferocious affection for him than he could ever remember feeling for his parents before they’d been slain in the endless war against Akielos. Yet since Auguste had fallen, Laurent had not felt such a closeness with another until Damianos had crossed the border. The intrusion of a human into the sacred bond he’d shared with Auguste feels worse than an iron brand pressed against his skin: it’s deeply _wrong._

But the violation may be a blessing in disguise. It means that there’s someone else who Auguste’s magic recognizes that can do something about his stasis.

The whispers of spies he’s placed around the country give him a direction to take his men in, along with the unspoken instinct that drives them toward the border. His sources indicate there’s a mortal that has taken residence in the south. Miraculous stories of a strong, huge Akielon mortal aiding the Unseelie in need have littered the lands.

Frankly, the stories are loud enough that Laurent’s not sure he can approach the village without the men along with him knowing he’s tracking the mortal, but there isn’t much to do about that.

It takes weeks to travel to the source of the rumors, but eventually, Laurent and his men arrive at a small fishing village. It’s distasteful, how the Fae mingle with mortals and pretend at living in harmony, though it makes sense that this is where Damianos ended up.

They approach the busiest part of the town at a casual pace, Laurent and his entourage. Unallied Fae scramble aside once they see the sigil of the Seelie Court hoisted high upon flags in the air. Laurent’s steed paws at the ground when he slows her to a stop, eager to have her tack off.

She’s a masterful creature, one of the four mares of Diomedes. An ancient Artes king had enchanted his steeds to be vicious and untameable except by the royal line, and Auguste had gifted her to Laurent a few decades ago. She has quite the taste for blood, and he loves her all the more for it. 

His mare’s mouth froths as they approach the closest stables. The foam, a pale color against her ebony fur, seems to stir a nervous energy around the stable, and he smirks. She won’t be _truly_ hungry for a few days out, but the others need not know the finer details.

If the tales told of Damianos are true, he’s found residence in the village assisting various Unseelie Fae. There’s a chimera prowling around the village that, a local tells him, refuses to leave ever since “that handsome human” had withdrawn a cursed thorn from its paw. Laurent wants to laugh disbelievingly at the story: how could a single human gain such loyalty from immortal creatures with more power than he could even fathom? 

Akielos fears magic, fears the way it will be turned on them. Its former crowned prince suddenly disregarding all of that seems highly unlikely.

Once their horses are stabled they turn toward a tavern, Laurent’s men and his uncle’s mercenaries managing to strike a tentative stalemate amongst the sweet wine and enchanted ale. 

There are a few mortals in one corner of the pub, hunched over their tankards and some frankly awful-looking food. Laurent has perfected the art of not drawing attention to the things that captivate him, and he lets his eyes glance off of them despite knowing they’re the exact reason he is here.

Damianos of Akielos is in the inn, as he had predicted, sitting around a table with a few other humans and a hobgoblin masquerading as a mortal whose glamour is almost impressive enough for Laurent to compliment.

He tries to ignore the weighty gazes landing on him as he listens idly to Jord talk about settling in for the night, but Damianos won’t stop _looking_ at him. It’s distracting.

Laurent considers pulling a glamour over his features or casting a spell that will pull Damianos’s attention away from Laurent’s party, but it would be a useless application of magic. Instead, he sips idly at the faerie wine fetched for him from the bar, appearing distracted by what’s happening around him. 

They’ll need to engage at some point, but Laurent had been hoping for some undetected reconnaissance beforehand. To have Damianos staring at him blatantly across the floor of the tavern jeopardizes that plan.

He stands up, shrugging off Jord’s questioning gaze as he heads outside for some quiet and fresh air. Laurent feels strange, knocked slightly off-kilter, and he attributes it to his closeness to the human who nearly took his brother from him. He leaves the tavern.

* * *

Govart’s gloves have been on Laurent’s mind all evening. He found it difficult to pinpoint the exact reason why when he’d first noticed it, but with his thoughts otherwise preoccupied, the detail hadn’t been distinct enough to garner his full attention. Possibly it was just that they had changed into an entirely different color than what he had been wearing: the change could have plausibly been what Laurent initially noticed.

The niggling in the back of his mind about them is the only thing that keys Laurent into what’s happening now; otherwise, he’d be entirely preoccupied with the conflicting stories of how Damianos, would-be prince-killer of the royal Seelie bloodline, has been _helping_ the Folk.

As it stands, Laurent is only _mostly_ blindsided when Govart corners him behind the tavern, the stretch of the forest behind them as he grins grotesquely and aims a crossbow directly at Laurent’s heart.

The sluggishness to his thoughts — and the disorientation of his limbs obeying his commands a few seconds too late to be normal — indicate magical interference of some sort. 

His faerie wine must have been tampered with.

Laurent stares at the arrow nocked in the crossbow and knows he’s made a foolish, fatal mistake. 

He never trusted any of his uncle’s men, but it’s clear now that their deception has played a darker role than he’d initially anticipated. It’s not a surprise that his uncle wants him nowhere near the throne, but he’d underestimated the lengths he would go to.

Sending him away from Arles to build physical distance between Laurent’s burgeoning abilities and the powerful magic of the Seelie Court is one thing. An assassination just a handful of steps away from the men loyal to him is another. On top of the fact that someone has clearly poisoned him, tainted magic leaking into his own and sabotaging him, this is a sophisticated attempt to annihilate him completely.

A quick assessment of the situation reveals that magic won’t get Laurent out of this. At least Laurent’s men are hopefully safe, unaware of the treason taking place just outside the inn-slash-tavern they’d decided to stay in for the night.

The only weapon on Laurent’s person is a dagger hidden in a sheath that rests against the small of his back. It’s a good defensive weapon, imbued with a poison that will stagger even the Folk, though not a particularly competent offensive weapon. 

Especially not against a crossbow: Laurent will be impaled before he can even get within reach. Trees loom around them, bordering the small village, and he feels a rush of disdain. It’s almost insulting, that this is how he’ll die. For some reason, he hadn’t anticipated that his uncle would try to have him killed, but it’s even worse to know that he’ll be discarded like trash after the fact.

Govart’s gloves, Laurent realizes now that their explanation is so clearly in front of him, are thickly lined and produced almost exclusively to allow Fae to handle iron. It explains everything, as he gestures to the iron-tipped arrow that glints dangerously.

“I’m going to enjoy this,” Govart says, and Laurent can hear the veracity of the claim tangled within his words. 

Laurent had thought he no longer held any love for his uncle, but the depth of such a betrayal hurts nearly as much as the arrow about to impale him will.

He lunges to the side, whip-quick, as Govart lets loose the first arrow. A sharp clang behind him indicates that he’s moved out of the way just in time, but he’s not out of danger yet. There’s no way out of the alley other than to pass Govart, though Laurent’s eyes catch on the tavern’s back door. 

It takes an overwhelming amount of energy to send a thin tendril of magic back into the tavern through it. It’s meant to alarm whoever it finds, to give Laurent the heartbeat of an extra moment to run.

Fighting is not an option, not with his magic this weak. If he can get past Govart and into the streets or back into the tavern, Laurent might stand a chance, but he’ll have to distract Govart for long enough to manage something so risky.

He thinks of his men, unaware of what’s happening. Of Damianos, focusing on Laurent and his party.

The pieces fall in line as Govart nocks another arrow. He clearly knew about Damianos’s presence in Vere, and the human’s history with the Court would provide a flawless justification for Laurent’s untimely demise. It explains why Govart and his men had no objections about Laurent’s chosen course through the country, why they’d so easily followed the hum of conversation about Damianos’s actions alongside Laurent’s own intel.

Damianos, though, appears to have not received the message that he’s about to be framed for Laurent’s death.

Govart prepares to fire just as Damianos himself bursts out of the tavern’s door. He’s glowing slightly — Laurent’s alarm magic must have hit him, for some reason, and not Jord or Orlant or one of his men. He shouts a garbled cry, throwing a knife pulled from his boot at Govart. It’s clear he’s not very practiced at the motion, but he still somehow manages to aim true, and the weapon lodges itself in Govart’s abdomen.

Govart roars with pain, and Laurent watches, as though time has slowed down to allow him to witness every second of this impossible event, as Govart pulls the trigger, and Damianos throws himself into the arrow’s path.

It’s over in an instant.

It’s over in a century.

Damianos seems just as surprised as Laurent is to see the iron-tipped arrow piercing his chest.

Govart looks stunned at the idea of anyone intervening. Laurent can feel the bulk of his magic locked away behind whatever meddling his uncle’s men have accomplished, but the distraction gives him a moment to gather the vestiges of what magic remains out of their control.

It _hurts,_ Laurent realizes as he calls magic to his hands, dragging the power from deep inside himself. It’s clawing at his insides, fighting both against Laurent and whatever spells had sequestered it away in the first place, but he manages to pull enough out to heed his demand. 

Even through the venom running through his magic, staggering him with its contamination, it almost seems alive with how eager it is to do Laurent’s bidding.

The raw, wild smell of unbridled magic fills the alleyway, bursting out of the shackles built in Laurent’s mind. Around them, plants begin to grow from the ground, reacting to the summoned power.

Alongside the thick roots of trees sprouting around them, it’s almost laughable how easy it is for Laurent to drag the very breath out of Govart’s lungs. He struggles for air, gloved hands flying uselessly to his throat, and Laurent watches as he loses the battle with consciousness. He slumps to the ground, more useless than a sack of potatoes.

He doesn’t currently have the means to rip Govart’s soul from his body, but the man will pay for his treachery. 

Damianos coughs thickly, tearing Laurent’s gaze and attention away from Govart’s unconscious body.

“I’m glad you’re alright,” he says, a trickle of blood — metallic-smelling and dark and _human_ — trailing down his chin.

It’s disgusting. Laurent can’t look away.

Somehow, a bolt from a crossbow hasn’t staggered Damianos to his knees as it should have. He remains standing, though there’s no possible way the wound he’s sustained isn’t imminently fatal.

Laurent suspects the arrow’s pierced his heart, which means the fragile mortal that has just saved his life has mere moments left.

“You have served your purpose,” Laurent says, and sets to tugging one of his gloves off. The leather is supple deerskin, and he distracts himself with its finely-sewn details as it slides from his fingers. “Do not mistake this as anything but repaying a debt.”

Mortal blood is thick, but not nearly as hot as Laurent’s own. The press of his bare skin against Damianos’s own sends a shock through him, though perhaps that’s the residual defensive magic filtering through him as a result of the attack.

There’s no neat way to do this: Laurent sends a surge of magic down the shaft of the arrow, forcing it _out_ , and it pulls out of Damianos’s chest with a soft, sucking noise. Laurent doesn’t hear if it falls to the ground, because he has just a few heartbeats to work with.

Healing magic requires an intense sort of focus that Laurent’s uncle had never quite grasped. It’s pathetically easy to conjure up the energy to destroy, but to mend… to fix and repair the delicate cells that combine endlessly to craft a being’s entire life-force… that’s difficult. 

Thankfully, Laurent’s brother had been a proficient teacher.

Damen’s skin begins to knit itself back together beneath the smears of red across his chest. Had this wound been inflicted on any other than a mortal, it would have spelled instant death: iron to the heart is untreatable even amongst the most powerful of Folk. 

Humans aren’t meant to survive wounds to their frail hearts, either, but when Laurent closes his eyes, he can _see_ his magic working its way into the organ, soothing over the deep gouge and reconstructing the parts that have been irrevocably damaged.

This close to deadly iron, his skin prickles in instinctive fear, but he tries and fails to force his attention to the task at hand.

If Damen hadn’t taken the arrow in his place...

Laurent swallows, hard.

There’s no point dwelling on the possibilities of past events.

He can see Damianos’s mouth begin to form words of gratitude, and he cuts him off by shoving his hand at the newly-healed wound, hard. Damen staggers a step back, caught off-guard, and Laurent looks on grimly with satisfaction.

“I owe you nothing,” he says. The words aren’t truly necessary, not with the act of repaying something as heavy as a lift debt, but Damianos takes them with a grin and a nod. He feels suddenly exhausted from the overexertion of using his magic and the brush with death.

Laurent shivers, and he thinks that perhaps the odd reaction to Damianos’s expression is due to a human allergy. 

* * *

“Call me Damen,” Damianos says, and Laurent wants to laugh. It’s such an idiotic, feeble attempt at wresting control from those with locution magic. He knows that Akielos believes all of the Folk can control mortals should they learn their true name, but in reality, it just comes off as stereotypical. Most creatures wouldn’t know what to even _do_ with an identity. 

_I know your name,_ he wants to say. _I could make you do_ anything _, and you’d thank me for it._

He doesn’t. He’ll try a different approach, first. Forcing others to bend to his will is something his uncle has done for centuries, and Laurent will not be like him.

“I need your help,” Laurent says, and though the price of using Vere’s magic is to always speak the truth, the words burn on their way out. He thinks of Auguste, locked perpetually in stasis between living and true death, and relishes the pain. It’s a sharp, brutal thing, and serves its purpose of distilling his priorities into what absolutely needs to be done.

“Oh,” Damianos says. “With what? There’s a centaur I already promised to help when the full moon comes around, but I’m sure we can work something out afterward.”

Laurent stares at him, because surely the human isn’t this stupid.

“You will assist me. The plights of others are irrelevant.”

With a smirk that’s more cheeky than genuine, Damianos loops a finger around the chain of yellow flowers around his neck. “Sorry. Immune to commands like those.”

He almost would’ve preferred the iron arrow, at this rate. Though the flowers _will_ protect him from a geas, they’re nothing against the truth of his name. A changeling’s charm in the face of blood magic, really. 

It’s clear that Damianos knows nothing about who and what he’s dealing with.

In another world, under any other circumstance, Laurent might have appreciated being treated as just another commoner. As it is, he finds himself annoyed. He yanks Damianos closer by the shirt, nearly dislodging him from his seat.

The human seems surprised at the casual display of strength. Good.

“Prince Damianos of Akielos,” Laurent hisses quietly into his ear. “I know who you are and exactly what you’ve done. I am giving you the _courtesy_ of asking, though you are seconds away from discovering exactly what it will be like should I stop being so _polite._ I suggest you match your priorities to the significance of the prince of the Seelie Court demanding your assistance.”

Damianos is definitely paying attention, now. His eyes are wide, pupils blown with shock. “Your brother—”

“Is exactly what you are going to help with,” Laurent finishes, shoving him back into his seat. It sends a sharp, angry shiver through him at the thought of Damianos so carelessly mentioning Auguste. “Whatever you did, you _will_ fix.”

“Whatever I did?” He seems confused now, a furrow wrinkling his brow. “I’m sorry, but I don’t know how to _unkill_ someone…”

Laurent feels the world tilt slightly. “Kill?”

Damianos looks at him oddly. It feels as though they are having two entirely different conversations, though the almost-inaudible ring in Laurent’s ears confirms that they’re still both communicating in Veretian. “Wait, Prince Auguste isn’t dead?”

It punches a breath out of Laurent’s lungs to envision Auguste _dead,_ though he recovers in an instant. “No,” he says quietly. “He’s not dead. But you did something when you fought him. His current condition is your fault. Assist me, and maybe do something other than use your gigantic frame to catch arrows. And I’ve heard the whispers from Akielos — do not dare betray me as you have them.”

The words are almost as effective as a binding spell. Laurent is truly starting to wonder if he won’t need magic to convince Damianos to assist him.

“ _I’ve_ betrayed them?” Damianos sounds disbelieving. “They’re the ones who banished me here!”

Laurent offers a shrug. The affairs of mortals are not his concern. He cares only about restoring Auguste to full health so the combined power of their bloodline can overtake their uncle’s claim to power.

“I can’t return home without a plan,” Damianos says, his confidence fluctuating like magic during an eclipse. “A treaty. If I help you with your brother, you’ll agree to a treaty between Akielos and Vere — a stop to the war while we settle our internal affairs.”

Laurent purses his lips. “I’m not negotiating with you. You’re obligated to help Auguste — _you’re_ the one who did this to him. Until you can prove yourself capable, you’ll receive no assistance from the Court.”

Damianos scowls. It looks quite similar to how Laurent feels. “I’m not going along with you for nothing.”

“Why not?” he asks, waving a hand around them. “Helping out centaurs, convincing even _sirens,_ the lust-driven beasts they are, that you’re worthy of trading favors, selling memories to sylphs… You’ve helped them all without repayment, but you won’t assist the royal family?”

“We’re at war,” Damianos replies, though he doesn’t seem as sure of himself, now. “I would be a fool to trust you. I _was_ a fool to trust the others, but they proved themselves worthy. Auguste and I were on opposite sides for a reason, and assisting the largest threat to my people is, to put it lightly, ill-advised. We are enemies, and have been since the fall of Artes.”

Laurent’s attention sharpens. “What would _you_ know of Artes?”

The thing about human lifespans is that they’re so laughably minuscule. Their scope of understanding about magic, about the pact that creatures like Laurent’s family made with the land in order to tap into its deepest energy reserves, is fleeting and incomplete. Once, the mortals made the effort to learn and understand, but it was quickly overshadowed by their fear and paranoia.

It’s an affront when a creature of mere decades can eliminate an otherwise immortal being. The way Damianos’s people had annihilated the original Fae of the Court has caused irrevocable damage to the land, and it’s appalling to hear him mention Artes even in passing.

Damianos leans back in his chair, looking thoughtfully out at the rest of the tavern. “The greatest crowning achievement of my ancestors,” he says. “Forcing those who dealt with magic into the borders of Vere so they would stop plaguing humanity with their cruel and wicked ways.” 

“Artes fell because of humans,” Laurent says, and he knows this with certainty because his family was _there._ “Because of fear and jealousy. Auguste was our greatest chance at settling the debt your kind owes us.”

The man across from him hesitates, like he’s considering saying something but doesn’t know how to get the words out.

He doesn’t have time for Damianos’s internal crisis about the political workings of Vere. Not with Govart held in a binding curse under careful watch, and the rest of his reckless mercenaries without a leader.

Laurent looks him in the eye. “Damianos. Help me.”

Damiano’s brow furrows in thought, or maybe agitation. “Let me think about it. I have a lot going on here—”

“In case you haven’t noticed, I don’t have the time to sit about waiting for you to decide whether or not you’re going to fix the mess you created.” It stings ever so slightly to refer to Auguste’s situation as a _mess,_ given how complicated it truly is, but with the recent attempt on his life, it’s an apt word.

Time as a concept works differently for Laurent than it does for a mortal — he has much more, comparatively, given his near-immortal lifespan, but the argument seems more effective than Laurent’s demand.

“The man who tried to kill you,” Damianos says slowly, as though he’s only just remembered what happened. “Is he going to be a problem?”

Laurent’s lips thin into a flat line. “No.” And it’s true: Govart isn’t going to break his way out of Laurent’s bindings any time soon, though he will have to deal with his uncle’s men sooner rather than later. It’s doubtful that Govart is the only one who has been issued a command to kill him, which is troublesome but not unmanageable.

He’s not above using it as an excuse if it sways Damianos’s decision, though.

“Although,” Laurent says, stretching out the word. “He’s not alone. There are likely… other dissenters who want me dead.” His uncle, for one.

Damianos frowns. He looks more considering than he did before, and Laurent pushes forward.

“I’ll give you the night to consider what is best for you _and_ your lost kingdom,” he says generously. Laurent stands and gestures toward Jord, who’s been eyeballing their interaction since they walked back into the tavern.

Damianos’s blood-stained, ripped shirt has certainly caught his captain’s attention.

He doesn’t truly intend on leaving Damianos alone without confirmation of his agreement, but the bluff works beautifully: Damianos stands, as well.

“Wait,” he says. Laurent grants him compliance with the command despite how rude it is to presume a member of the Fae, royalty or not, would abide by the order of a _human_. “I’ll help you. But please, though… call me Damen.”

Laurent resolutely will _not._ It’s insubordinate, all these commands hidden under the guise of requests, but Laurent nods at his assent, if not his presumptuous language. “It’s a deal.”

Magic shimmers around them, binding Damianos’s will to Laurent’s own.

* * *

(“Let me take care of your would-be assassin,” Damianos tells him, and Laurent grants him permission. Damen had retrieved the knife he’d thrown as soon as he’d recovered, and Laurent has no doubt that it’s made of iron. A dangerous weapon in the hands of a human, but he’ll allow it if for now if it means dispatching Govart quietly.)

* * *

With Govart’s betrayal and Laurent’s acquisition of Damianos, he has his hands full. The mercenaries under Govart’s command are a troublesome lot, and he doesn’t have the time nor the energy to interrogate each one for knowledge of what his uncle’s planned.

Damianos is better bait than he’d planned, though: having a human in their ranks embitters even the most loyal of Laurent’s guard. When men are angry, their flaws begin to show, and Laurent watches with a sharp eye who questions his command to leave the human alone as he had become the property of the royal family (which had garnered Damianos’s own righteous anger, but Laurent is apparently pissing everyone off this century).

It hadn’t been a half-truth, either. Damianos’s agreement to assist Auguste had triggered that bone-deep magic Laurent had first felt when Auguste fell in Marlas, irrevocably linking them.

He’d used locution magic to relay his orders to his men. The majority of them had nodded along, confident in their prince’s leadership, but a few of them had stared blankly in Laurent’s direction, his magic refusing to take hold.

It’s not _quite_ a reshaping of one’s will, but rather a nudge in the direction he commands, and to see them resisting it fills his mouth with a bitter taste. Laurent suspects his uncle’s roots have settled deeper than he’d initially thought, and it’s with an odd mixture of irritation and disappointment that he truly acknowledges the lengths that the man will go to in order to maintain his position of power.

They begin their journey back to Arles, and within days Laurent has weeded out the most suspicious of the lot. 

The former prince of Akielos becomes violently ill as they travel, and based on the purple, bell-shaped flowers they pass, it’s likely foxglove poisoning. Though it is an annoyance to keep the mortal alive _again,_ the not-so-clever trail left behind by one of Govart’s mercenaries helps reveal who has been plotting against Laurent.

He leaves the men responsible to Jord’s unforgiving brand of punishment and does not see them again.

Lazar, one of the mercenaries, is a pleasant surprise: he’s an uncouth, wild breed of Fae that has no loyalties to anyone but himself. He’s perceptive, certainly, judging by the way he sidles up to Jord and reveals two additional men his uncle had in his pockets who Laurent hadn’t sussed out yet.

It’s a risky move, selling out men who are supposedly on your side, but one that pays off when Laurent rewards him for the intel by not wiping his memory and leaving him to die at the hands of the Unseelie in the Veretian countryside. A man with no loyalties will never be a solid foundation for trust, but at least Laurent can make it worth it for Lazar not to betray him quite so quickly as he had his uncle. 

Lazar further ingratiates himself to Laurent when Laurent catches him, one day, asking Damen invasive questions about his human heritage. Damen seems to be valiantly trying not to reveal any information, but Lazar is persistent. Laurent does nothing to disrupt the interaction, reluctantly curious himself.

* * *

Damianos, Laurent regrets to admit, even to himself, is not what he expected.

Since Auguste’s fall, he has had little reason to get close to others. None of the courtiers in Vere came to Laurent with a purpose other than to manipulate him, after all, and he’d learned how to play the game of politics before he’d received lessons on how to channel his budding magic.

Though it has been nearly a century since his uncle deigned to show him anything other than masterfully-hidden disgust, Laurent has not forgotten what it is like to have his full regard.

It’s clear now that Laurent hasn’t completely lost his uncle’s attention; it’s merely shifted in dangerous ways.

The royal family of Vere makes a point to not spend their time around mortals, understandably. Laurent’s knowledge of humankind is limited to what he’s read, tales recounted from countless Fae of the fickle nature of man.

There’s something nearly compelling about Damianos’s fleeting mortality, though. He seems bright with life, as fragile and ephemeral as he is, and Laurent feels unwittingly drawn into it.

* * *

Trouble finds them far too quickly: Laurent’s on guard after Govart’s murder attempt, but it’s still troubling how apparent it is that his uncle’s scheming has extended far beyond planting assassins within his scouting party.

They’re in a busy trading town restocking their supplies for the slow journey back home — it wouldn’t do to shorten his country-wide patrol and alert his uncle to anything beyond the usual, after all — when they’re attacked.

In the midst of the crowd, voices chattering happily about the upcoming blood moon and the quality selection of goods as Damen looks around in awe at the various wares in the marketplace, Laurent’s protective wards fall.

It happens in an instant: one moment they’re present, the typical, constant presence of cool magic that never wears off due to Laurent’s near-religious recasting of the spells daily, and the next, they drop entirely, leaving him entirely too vulnerable.

He whips his head around, searching for anyone radiating enough magic to interfere with his own. It’s only from the corner of Laurent’s eye that he spots someone moving quickly away — he can’t recognize anything noticeable about them in the bustle of the crowd, and the there-and-then-gone flicker of movement sets Laurent on edge. 

It’s nothing, however, compared to the sudden jolting pain of his skin being pierced from every conceivable angle.

It feels like thousands of needles impaling him and then _expanding_ until his very nerves feel set aflame. It’s worse than a basilisk's bite, or having his magic torn from his very being. Worse than being thrown from his steed and landing terribly on his arm.

He spares the mere heartbeat of a moment to be appreciative that Damen’s close to him. Laurent can’t help but slump against Damen’s side, overwhelmed with sudden misery. Damen startles at the press of a body against his own, perceptive in a way that would grate against Laurent’s nerves at any other time. “Are you okay?”

“No,” Laurent bites out. “Get me out of here. _Now.”_

Without further question — thank the Mother — Damen curls his cloak around Laurent’s frame and hurries them through the crowd. The minutes pass by dizzily, painfully, until Damen finally ducks into a building with Laurent in tow.

His skin feels clammy with sweat. It’s a terrible feeling — the Fae don’t get _sick_ the way mortals do. He feels brought low.

“What is it?”

“Elfshot,” Laurent grunts through gritted teeth. The pain spasms throughout him, eating at his veins and sinking deep into the marrow of his bones. Keeping upright feels like a losing battle, and his vision whites out for the briefest of moments before resolving itself with a slight blur around the edges.

Damen looks panicked. “What can I do?”

“It’s nonfatal,” Laurent responds, clenching a fist in Damen’s clothing. It’s horrifying, this forced vulnerability that’s happened so many times in front of a mortal, but he can’t quite gain a grip on his reactions at the moment. “Just,” and he finally gives in, letting out one sharp gasp as pain radiates everywhere, “incapacitating.”

“So they’re coming for you while you’re indisposed,” Damen says, eyes narrowing. “Give me your sword.”

Laurent barks a sharp, agonized laugh. “Not likely.”

“Shut up,” Damen hisses, looking frantically around. “I’ll protect you.”

Even through the pain, Laurent isn’t about to surrender a weapon — nor his ability to protect himself. It takes a remarkable amount of effort to summon the land’s magic while his body throbs like a gaping wound, but he manages to wave a hand over the two of them, casting a glamour that should render them both invisible. 

He prays to Auguste that it works.

Damen had led them into what looks like a butcher’s storehouse. The air smells strongly of dried meat and spice, and it’s thankfully empty of any curious bystanders. Laurent’s positive they must have set some wards off by trespassing, but for now, it’s a quiet reprieve from the bustling crowd of the marketplace, and he sags to the floor, breathing ragged as the elfshot runs its course.

How shameful. Damen must think his bloodline particularly weak, for Laurent to be caught out and thrust into danger so frequently.

“Who is _doing_ this?” Damen pleads. His gaze flickers between Laurent and the door.

Laurent is unused to the pounding ache of his head, and it takes him a moment too late to realize that it’s not all internal: there is the dull pounding of fists on the door.

“Shit.” Damen looks down at Laurent’s hip, where his sword is resting against the ground, and then he grimaces, pulling a dagger from his boot.

It’s the same weapon he’d used to distract Govart, iron-made and dangerous.

What’s even more startling than Damen drawing an iron weapon _again_ in Laurent’s presence is the stance Damen takes, dagger held aloft and feet spread in a combative pose. He truly intends to _protect_ Laurent instead of taking advantage of his incapacitation to finish the job his uncle had started.

Damen would be a fool not to take the chance. He’s already tried to slaughter one of the Veretian princes, and the other is lying pathetically at his mercy while he bears one of the few weapons that could conceivably do the job.

Instead, Laurent watches as Damen glares toward the entrance, looking not unlike a viper ready to strike. He is several mysteries piled and entwined and twisted together, and Laurent doesn’t have nearly enough time in the world to figure him out.

The elfshot is finally starting to fade: Laurent can _think_ again. And with the revelation of his restored mental faculties is the sharp burn of pride in his breast as the door bursts open to reveal two Unseelie thugs and his magic holds against their probing onslaught.

Laurent clamps a hand around Damen’s ankle, stilling him as the men search the warehouse. One casts a detection spell, but the magic is so low-grade that Laurent doesn’t even need to counter it; his own magic brushes it off as easily as dust.

They find nothing, and leave after a hushed, furious exchange of words.

Really, it’s almost disappointing how sloppy Laurent’s uncle’s getting the closer they get to Arles.

Almost like he doesn’t want his nephew to arrive home safely, or something.

* * *

“Who’s trying to kill you?” Damen asks as they travel far, far away from the trading village. “That’s far too many times to be a coincidence.”

The wind tickles his face, almost mocking. _You bargained for magic, little one,_ it seems to say. _Now, pay your debt of honesty._ “You’re not the only one whose family would prefer you dead,” he settles for, watching the surprise flit across Damen’s face.

He’s not idiotic enough to ask further questions, at least.

The truth should be a burden, weighing Laurent down with every step closer they take toward Arles. But speaking to Damen seems to do the opposite, lifting the pressure from his shoulders as they ride. Speaking the words aloud isn’t what makes them true — no, there is plenty of conniving action that has done that — but it feels almost… comforting to know that someone else believes in it.

His uncle may want him dead, but he’s failed multiple times. Damen has proven to have Laurent’s best interests in mind, which is more than he’s ever had before. Their growing closeness, and Laurent’s frequent brushes with danger, do not bode well.

Laurent worries, now, for his brother’s safety.

* * *

They all settle reluctantly into a routine: Laurent patrols, communicating with the branches of the Seelie Court that reside around the country as they finish their looping journey around the country. 

They’re past the half-way point, entering the territories that will lead them back toward the capital. With the failed assassination attempts, he fears extending their tour will have dire consequences for Auguste. It’s difficult to strategically maneuver a careful path back to Arles that won’t seem faster than his uncle anticipates.

It’s not impossible, though. Nothing truly is.

“Oh,” Damen says, surprised, as they crest a hill that borders the edges of Lys. “I know where we are.”

“Congratulations,” Laurent responds, keeping his tone bland. He _is_ curious about Damen’s adventures in Vere, but it wouldn’t do to blatantly encourage him to share.

Damen launches into a tale about how there’s a band of Unseelie half-elves that needed his help with a curse from a witch that could only be broken by spilled mortal blood, and Laurent half-listens as he considers how close they may have gotten to the clan of Sidhe that live in the foothills of the mountains. They’re a territorial lot, and may have some words about half-elves encroaching on their land.

The whispered tendrils of stories from the Fae about Damen’s exploits are clearly more than just mere rumor. It would surprise Laurent, if he hadn’t already witnessed Damen’s ridiculously foolish displays of selflessness a great many times already.

* * *

The moon has hung in the sky all day, bright and vivid. It’s a sure sign that the setting of the sun will bring with it a magic-imbued revel, and though Laurent does not particularly care for the manic celebrations of Fae letting loose alongside feral lunar magic, he knows his men will want to take the evening off. 

He refuses to admit to emotion as mortal as _worry,_ but he does wonder how Damen will handle a revel. The soldiers around them have been on edge all day, anticipating the ceremony, and even Damen, a human with underdeveloped senses, has picked up on the strange hum of energy surrounding them.

“Why is everyone acting so bizarrely?” Damen murmurs, arching his neck to speak the words in Laurent’s ear.

Laurent keeps his eyes on the path in front of them, ignoring the warmth of Damen’s breath on his skin. “It’s a time for celebration.”

“Celebrating what?”

Humans are so _nosy._ None of the Court in Vere would be as foolish to ask Laurent so many insipid questions. 

“Your Highness, excuse me,” Lazar interrupts. His words _should_ be respectful, but somehow he manages to utter them with complete confidence that his intrusion _will_ be excused.

“We were wondering if we could stop early, this evening? Given, you know...” and he tilts his head up toward the moon, eyebrows doing some complicated wiggle across his forehead.

What Laurent wouldn’t give to be fifty years old and able to sigh loudly, like an exasperated youngling. They’ll be useless if he says no, the restless energy inside of them humming until they’re incapable of anything but yearning for the outlet once the sun sets. They’re on a tight schedule: Laurent wants to return to Arles as quickly as possible, but the timing of the moon is not ignorable. “Yes, Lazar, you and the other men are free to engage in whatever debaucheries you’d like.”

“See?” Damen says, pointing at Lazar as he saunters away. “Bizzare.”

“The magic of the land sings to us,” Laurent says. He’s uncomfortable with granting an Akielon this type of knowledge, but Damen’s going to figure it out sooner or later when he inevitably wakes Auguste. “It is a constant presence in our minds, in our bodies. And particular natural phenomenons amplify that pressure, like a flood aching to spill over. The full moon’s power drags across our skin, today.”

Damen hums thoughtfully. “Moons such as this one are celebrated in Akielos, as well. We pay tribute to the goddess with our lovers by...” He trails off, making a gesture that explains absolutely nothing. Still, Laurent does not lack perception in the face of crude hand motions.

“If you’re shy about sex, tonight will be a startling experience.”

Damen says, too quickly, “I’m not shy about sex. But honoring Selene is about… sharing your pleasure with her, in what is meant to be private and intimate.”

It sounds similar to Fae revels if Laurent’s being honest. He smirks, sharp and dangerous. “Are we not creatures of magic just as your gods and goddesses are? Sharing your intimacy with others at a revel seems fairly comparable.”

“That’s not—” Damen protests before cutting himself off. Laurent raises an eyebrow at his suddenly-developed sense of tact. “It’s different. They’re bigger than us, bigger than even you. Haven’t you ever considered where your magic comes from?”

“I just told you,” Laurent says impatiently. “From the land.”

“It comes from above, not below,” Damen insists. “We’ve struggled to understand why the gods gave your kind such unimaginable power, but it _was_ they who granted it to you. And they granted us humanity in the face of Fae cruelty, to keep it tempered and restore the balance.”

“Magic is not _unimaginable,_ ” Laurent says. He needs to bite his tongue, to staunch the flow of too-valuable information to someone who will only twist it into further reasoning to hate Laurent’s people. Irritation at Damen’s presumptuousness has made him sloppy. “It’s an agreement. We are bound to the consequences of utilizing it, just as all creatures are.”

 _Your people could make that pact, too,_ he refuses to say. Humans have proved their inability to handle even the concept of magic, let alone the ability to wield it. It’s knowledge that will never make it past the swirling of his thoughts.

“Attend the revel tonight, and you will see how we honor the land that has given us such power.” It is not concern that moves Laurent to speak. He simply requires Damen whole and hale to restore Auguste to consciousness, and losing the human to his mischievous brethren will cause a headache. “Do not eat or drink anything. We’ll leave before the sun rises, or you’ll be trapped within to dance until your feet wear to the bone.”

* * *

_Stunned_ feels too weak of a word to describe what Damen’s feeling, but it’s the only one that immediately comes to mind.

He’s slowly learned that there’s more to the Folk than what he grew up studying. Damen’s a warrior. He’s fought Veretians to the death, knows how ruthless they can be on the battlefield. He has seen their magic rip his brethren limb from limb, but those memories feel worlds away from the sight before him: the Fae celebrate like their very lives depend on it, music an intricate rhythm that pulses around him as they drink, laugh, and play. 

Laurent had warned him of how rambunctious a revel could get, but he didn’t say anything about how _beautiful_ it would be.

Being banished to Vere is the worst thing that has ever happened to Damen, putting his life at risk too many times to count, but through his experiences, he’s also beginning to truly comprehend that the Fae are more than the bloodthirsty immortal beings he’s grown up despising.

He’s not sure if he would ever undo it, if he could.

“Wow,” he says, voice light and full of wonder. “I’m… I’ve never seen anything like this.”

Something in his gut tugs his attention toward a canopied section of the forest. Beneath it is a group of lovely women that shimmer in the moonlight, their lithe bodies twisting and turning sinuously alongside the music that feels like it’s pumping through Damen’s own veins.

A firm grip on his arm stills him. “Do _not_ consume anything,” Laurent says. “You’re too weak to overcome the magical compulsion.”

Damen wants to object to being called _weak,_ but he manages to bite his tongue. Laurent’s operating on different rules, here, and it almost sounds like he’s giving Damen _advice._ He doesn’t entirely trust Laurent of Vere, but he’ll take the warning for what it is. He nods brusquely, attention already refocused on the writhing women — what they are, he has no idea, other than that they’re utterly captivating.

“I’ll be fine,” he says, gesturing again at the daisy-chained flowers around his neck. 

“You are a complete idiot,” Damen thinks he hears Laurent say, but he doesn’t stop Damen as he pulls away from Laurent’s group of men. Lazar grins sharply at him before separating from them as well, linking an arm around Damen’s as they enter the fray.

Damen’s not sure when they get separated; one moment, he’s listening to Lazar’s bawdy reviews of the different Fae groups surrounding them, and the next, he’s alone. Well, not alone _alone_. He’s drawn in by the women who had caught his attention before: they’re barely clothed but giggling and very handsy, and Damen joins them where they’re dancing beneath a large tree.

He falls into them, their moods catching as a wide grin stretches across his features and he finds his arms full of excitable Fae. They dance in a way that seems inherently erotic, inviting Damen into the fold.

It’s no hardship to join their reveling.

Warmth settles over Damen, raw magic almost palpable in the air as he gets lost in their hands, mouths, bodies. They tempt him with plump grapes and delectable pastries dusted with sugar, and he just barely manages to decline. His tongue feels thick in his mouth every time he does, though, mouth watering at the thought of a single bite.

“No,” he says good-naturedly as one offers to feed him something dripping with honey from her fingers, though even he can tell his conviction is failing. 

Time passes, or maybe it doesn’t. The moon is a fierce figure streaking across the sky, a beautiful vision that seems to sap away Damen’s own inhibitions. 

He knows he’s not supposed to eat or drink anything, though he’s hard-pressed to remember _why._ The thought falls away when a woman whose name Damen cannot remember for the life of him grins, her teeth a blinding white against the dark red of her lips. He thinks he sees fangs, but they’re of little concern as she’s soon pressing the golden lip of a cup to his own lips.

Damen jerks his head away before the liquid in the cup can spill.

“What did I say?” he drawls, meaning to be chastising but sounding playful instead. “I don’t want your food and drinks.”

The woman pouts in a lovely way before drinking from the goblet herself. Damen strokes a finger down the length of her neck, and she moves forward, wrapping herself around him. With a chuckle, he winds an arm around her waist and pulls her in, bringing their heads closer until lips press together.

Too late, he realizes his mistake. As they kiss, liquid from the drink held in her mouth pools into his. He swallows reflexively in surprise.

It’s the best thing he’s ever tasted. 

It’s the worst thing he’s ever tasted. 

Now that it’s touched his tongue, he feels like he will never find something as delectable and wonderful and perfect as it again.

Damen thinks he’s crying even as he laughs, but then time blurs even further, and he feels himself being tugged deeper into the revel, his feet tripping over themselves in eagerness to follow. 

He doesn’t know where he’s going, just that he’s ecstatic to go at all.

Seconds, minutes, hours, _days_ pass before Damen sees Laurent again. The Fae prince is a study in beauty, tightly laced in complex clothing as his hair fairly glows like a halo around him. Pointed ears peek out from the twining braids of hair crowning his head. He looks like the ethereal immortal he truly is, imbued with the power of the gods and adept enough to wield it.

It stills Damen completely to see him, his heart tripping over itself at the vision he makes.

On top of Laurent looking positively gorgeous, though, he also looks very unhappy, which makes Damen frown in return.

“Are you not having fun?” he asks. The glow of will-o-wisps surrounds them. They catch Damen’s attention, distracting him as he watches, at least until Laurent responds.

“One thing,” Laurent says. His voice is a lilting thing, musical and wonderful, though soured by something that dampens Damen’s sheer joy. “I asked you not to do one thing. What was it?”

“Keep talking,” Damen says, wishing his own words came out as melodious. Instead, they rasp out of his throat. “Please.”

“What did you eat?”

Pleased that Laurent’s obeyed his request, Damen brings a hand up and brushes it clumsily against Laurent’s chest. He’d been aiming for his shoulder, but… close enough. “I didn’t eat anything!” Damen says. “Just like you told me. Aren’t you proud?”

Everything spins around him, and he feels _excellent._ In fact, he can’t remember feeling as good as he does now; it seems impossible that he ever thought the Fae were creatures of cruelty, not when they’re capable of creating such unbridled bliss.

“No,” Laurent says sharply, the edges of his declaration cutting into Damen’s elation like a blade into exposed skin. “You’ve clearly disobeyed me.”

He says sadly, “Oh. Do you hate me?”

The thought tears into him: he’s made Laurent unhappy, and that won’t do. They’ve been traveling for what has to be weeks, now, and Damen’s grown to reluctantly like the Fae, despite the yawning centuries of history between them.

“Yes.” A hand grips his shirt, and Damen finds himself stumbling after Laurent as they leave the heart of the revel. He’s too distressed by Laurent’s answer to spare a thought about leaving the revelers behind; more than anything, Damen doesn’t want Laurent to hate him.

“What can I do to make it better?” Because there _has_ to be something that will make Laurent’s lovely, chiming voice sound less upset. “I’ll… I’m gonna bring Auguste back, you know? I don’t have magic like you, but I gave away a memory to some sylphs and it _worked,_ so I’ll do whatever trade it takes to get your brother back so you’ll stop looking so sad—”

“Damen,” Laurent interrupts. He still looks angry, not sad, a glint in his eyes that would make a lesser man than Damen cower. Damen realizes he’s still rambling, words spilling out of him like a sieve. “Damianos.”

The utterance of his name sends a hot shiver down his spine, and abruptly, Damen can’t take it anymore: the quiet of the woods around them, Laurent looking at him in that unidentifiable way. He surges forward until he’s kissing Laurent, a pressing of lips and tongues that drives everything out of his mind but how wonderful the Fae prince smells, looks, _tastes—_

For a blissful, heavenly moment, Laurent kisses back. It’s gone in what feels like an instant when Laurent pushes him away, a thin thread of saliva still connecting their lips for the briefest moment before it snaps as Laurent puts distance between them.

“No,” he whispers.

It’s all Damen needs: even through the thrall of humming magic making him feel light as a feather, he knows what that word means.

“Okay,” Damen says. Without his explicit permission, Damen’s hand comes up to cup the sharp curve of Laurent’s jaw. He can’t resist the urge to run that fine blond hair through his fingers, but he pulls away once he’s sure he’s memorized the feel of the gossamer strands. “Okay.”

Laurent looks at him in disbelief, and he’s achingly beautiful with the full moon casting a subtle glow over everything. He’s an echo of the euphoria still dogging Damen’s footsteps, though something solemn comes over them both in the moment.

Damen pulls away — reluctantly, but reluctance is a great deal preferable to the devastation of doing something without his lover’s permission — and in a flash, he stops feeling quite so wonderful.

He throws an arm up to cover his eyes, and groans, “Oh, the world is spinning.”

“The world is not spinning.” Laurent sounds as confident and irritated as he always does. “You’re just magic-drunk.”

Damen squints against his own forearm. “But I didn’t drink anything. I think. I can’t remember.”

An exaggerated sigh greets his ears, before something cool and tingling washes over him.

It must be magic. Laurent’s done something magical.

Damen can’t help the silly smile on his face. Laurent could be standing there doing nothing, and it would still feel like magic. He _is_ magic incarnate, wonderful and dangerous and effervescent. He was a fool for believing his father’s stories about the Fae and magic — how could anything that created Laurent possibly be _bad?_

“Shut up,” Laurent says, voice tinged with something strange. Damen realizes belatedly he must have said that aloud.

“Damianos. Look at me.”

There’s a peculiar weight behind Laurent’s words, and some distant part of Damen’s mind blares warningly. Beneath the trudge of his sluggish thoughts, he realizes that Laurent has the ability to force others to do his bidding, should he speak their true name.

He’s just said Damen’s out loud, and yet… compulsion does not overtake him. He feels no dragging impulse forcing him to obey, like he had with Aisling.

There is no magic-imbued command in Laurent’s words. Only a request.

Damen opens his eyes, and _looks._

* * *

Damen’s idiocy is catching.

It’s the only explanation for why Laurent has entangled himself — physically, magically, spiritually — with a mortal who has done terrible things to his bloodline. There’s something utterly ludicrous about the fact that Laurent can tell himself this countless times, yet it means nothing in the face of… well, Damianos himself.

Damen drags his lips across Laurent’s collarbone, warm breath leaving a trail across his bared skin. Whatever he’d consumed earlier has lent a worshipful tinge to his actions, and he hums in his throat like a contented kitten.

“Get on with it,” Laurent huffs, annoyed at both himself for allowing things to get this far and Damen’s lack of a hurry. The quicker this happens and is over with, the better.

He can feel Damen’s smile against his skin. It’s unsettling. “I am,” he breathes, splaying wide hands around Laurent’s middle. “There is nowhere else I’d rather be.”

Fingers catch and get caught in the tangle of Laurent’s laces. It quickly becomes a losing battle, and Laurent’s patience is already run ragged. He snaps and they fall away, eager to please his magic.

“Oh,” Damen says, like he’s surprised. The word sounds more disappointed than anything else, though. “I wanted to do that.”

Laurent quells the mortal impulse to roll his eyes in exasperation. “You would have spent hours trying.”

Damen hums again before the press of fingers beneath Laurent’s chin has their mouths fitting against one another perfectly. “Isn’t that the point?”

His response is lost in the kiss, Damen pressing against him with the length of his entire brutish body. Laurent knows, instinctively, that the Fae run a higher temperature than mortals do, but Damen feels positively scalding on top of him. Laurent finds himself wrapping his limbs around Damen’s own until they’re embracing so tightly that not a soul could mistake what they’re about to do.

There’s something devouring about the kiss, as though they could consume one another without even bothering with the true exchange of flesh. Laurent’s teeth are sharp against Damen’s tongue, slicing into the meaty appendage, though Damen’s hiss of pleasure is as encouraging as his coppery, enthralling blood.

“Gods, Laurent,” Damen exhales. Surely it’s the residue of revel magic causing Damen to act like this, like Laurent himself is one of the deities he’s blaspheming about, but it still warms something deep within him. Blood smears enticingly at the corner of his mouth. “I want—”

“Take it,” Laurent responds, startled as his skin heats to what is surely a visible flush. He is unable to lie, and the words betray how badly he, too, wants.

He’s never — had a _moment_ like this one, and a sweet-smelling settling of what has to be Laurent’s magic around them feels like a complete loss of control.

“No, no, no,” Damen’s saying, even as he wraps a hand around Laurent’s abdomen until it’s pressing gently against the curve of his spine. The pressure shifts Laurent’s entire body until he’s arching in Damen’s arms. Damen’s other hand snakes around and slides into his breeches, coarse palms cupping the curve of Laurent’s ass. “I won’t take anything you don’t want.”

Laurent feels stilled by everything surrounding them: the words, the touch, the magic.

This is —

He’d never thought anything like this possible.

To admit to anything aloud will grant Damen far more power than he deserves, yet the words stick in Laurent’s throat anyway. _You can have it all. Ask me._ Demand _me._

He is an idiot.

Sheer force of will overcomes the impulse, and Laurent dips his free hand — the one not tangled in Damen’s thick mop of hair — into the dark, endless space between realms to withdraw a small stoppered vial of oil. He presses it into Damen’s chest.

Damen groans like he’s already reached climax. _“Magic,_ ” he keens, his hips jerking an unsteady rhythm against where they’re pressed against Laurent.

“Damianos,” Laurent growls, yanking his head back until his neck is bared. The things Laurent could do with that stream of lifeblood… “If you finish, I might give in to the temptation to kill you.” 

It would seem that threats such as this one circumvent telling the truth in the most interesting of ways.

His words spur Damen into action: after that, it’s a scramble to unclothe fully and prepare Laurent for Damen’s newly-exposed cock, which is far larger than any human should reasonably possess.

Laurent could use magic to ease the way, but he refrains. The push of Damen’s thick fingers at his entrance is more intimate than any headily-cast incantation, though for some reason it seems more appropriate. Though magic is an innate part of Laurent’s very being, engaging in this act the way humans do has him hot in ways he’d never anticipated before.

When Damen finally presses into him, his length filling Laurent and fitting inside him like it _belongs_ , it’s reckless and flawless and nearly too much to handle. 

Laurent’s lungs burn as he sucks in air desperately, and Damen murmurs reassurances to him alongside filthy praise. Time blurs into delicious nothing, his entire existence narrowed down to this singular experience.

It’s nearly impossible to admit, even to himself, that Laurent has never felt so _human_ as he does with Damen fucking him, but it’s a soaring kind of freedom and not the shackle of impending fatality that he would expect it to be. It feels like _life,_ in its purest form, and amidst the pleasure, there is no room for umbrage.

It’s readily apparent that mortals don’t quite have the same stamina that the Fae have, but by the Mother, Damen tries to disprove that fact. Multiple times.

When he finally rolls over, drenched in sweat and more unseemly fluids, his heart is pounding so loudly that Laurent can hear it even in his own head. 

They don’t speak. There’s nothing to _say,_ not after what they’ve just done. It spoke loudly enough for the both of them.

Damen dozes shortly after, leaving Laurent staring up at the red-orange sky as the sun breaches the horizon. He’s kept his promise, pulling Damen away from the blood moon revel before the rising of the sun.

He considers wiping the mortal’s memory — knowing his true name would make it remarkably easy to do so — but a shiver that feels too close to Auguste’s brand of magic snakes down his spine at the very thought.

Laurent just wonders what else he’s agreed to, in the process.

* * *

They’re mere days from returning to the Court when it happens again. This close to the border, Laurent strives to remember the entire reason he’s dragged Damen across the continent, but Damen seems to mistake his purpose. Laurent would say that Damen feels entitled to his body, if not for the continued gentleness that permeates all of his actions.

It’s infuriating.

It’s intoxicating.

Laurent tries to remain steadfast to the belief that even if it takes Damen’s life to rescue Auguste it will be a worthy sacrifice, but the magic in Vere does not forbid him from lying to himself.

* * *

Laurent knows with complete certainty, even with the ever-present awareness that Damen is capable of deception, that he’s telling the truth.

The tent they’re in is nothing fanciful: it’s more efficient than anything, Jord’s particular brand of earthy magic permeating the structure they’re settled into for the evening. Damen’s clinging to him like fungus on a woodland troll, speaking truths that make Laurent want to — shut him up. Kill him.

Kiss him.

They’ve been lying together for hours, Laurent resting contentedly against Damen’s side. He hasn’t quite managed the feat of unconsciousness, not with his nerves beginning to sing as they remind him how close they are to the capital, but Damen’s convinced by his facade.

“I’m going to save your brother,” Damen murmurs, brushing his fingers ever-so-lightly across Laurent’s shoulder. It’s a struggle to remain lax as he feigns sleep: he wants nothing more than to surge forward, invite that touch into places more sensitive and needy.

Laurent keeps his face relaxed, though it takes tremendous effort.

Damen’s lips press against his skin softly, like petals skimming across the water. “And then I’m going to go back to Akielos, throw my brother in prison, reclaim my throne, and end this war between us. It’s a lot to do, and it will take time.”

 _Time_ means more to Damen than it does to Laurent, who has centuries of it spanning ahead of him if he manages to foil his uncle’s schemes. It’s the kind of promise that humans make and intend to keep over the course of their short lifetimes.

“But after,” Damen whispers, his touch fading from Laurent’s skin as his voice grows quieter. “After…”

His breath evens out, and Laurent realizes too-late that he’s fallen asleep. Damen’s words turn themselves over and over again in Laurent’s mind, and it’s a startling realization that Laurent wholly believes him. Believes in him. 

Believes in _them._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is the conclusion of my rbb fic! i don't think that laurent and damen's journey has quite concluded yet, though, so i will definitely be writing a third part soon to wrap everything up. thank you so much for reading! feel free to chat with me about capri or other books on [twitter](https://twitter.com/wyverning), and please consider leaving a comment!


End file.
